The Pharisees went out immediately and conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. - Mark 3.6

"Take the guns first, go through due process second." Our President said that in an open meeting to discuss policy following the recent school shooting in Florida. In context, President Trump referred to regulations that would allow law enforcement to seize weapons from a person who displayed warning signs but had not yet committed any actual crime. The government would have to follow the standard legal path in order to make the action permanent. 

Still: It at least sounded as if the head of the executive branch of the most powerful government on earth publicly advocated violating the nation's core legal code on nothing more than his own preference. I was furious.

I take you now to first century Palestine where Jesus' enemies plot his death. The important thing to note is that the triggering event is the healing of a man with a withered hand. The problem is, he does it on the Sabbath. And while Jesus' act does not violate the Scripture, it violates their traditional and longstanding reading of the Scripture. Just a few verses earlier Jesus gave his defense for doing this kind of thing: The Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath. (Mk 2.27) Call it the "because-I-say-so" hermeneutic! The person who offers himself as king of the very rule of God which will encompass the entire earth advocates violating the nation's legal precedent on nothing more powerful than his own preference. They are furious.

Remember that Jesus has done a number of things that tend to back his claim: He's healed sick people, eighty-sixed demons, and raised a cripple to his feet. None of that is good enough. In the emotional world of their brand of Judaism, Jesus just can't be a good guy.

Now I wonder: If our President had made his statement after, say, visiting Bethesda Naval Hospital where he soothed PTSD victims with a single touch and restored the amputated limbs of combat veterans, then went to Arlington National Cemetery and raised a dead soldier from the grave, would I be able to embrace his claim to rule the United States at his own discretion? More likely, my ingrained sense of what it means to be an American would have me calling for his impeachment. 

It is so easy - too easy - to dis the scribes and Pharisees as calcified traditionalists and cast myself in the role of, say, one of the disciples. In fact, I share more with them than I would like to admit.